Packed pretty tight in here tonight/I’m looking for a dolly who’ll see me right

Yesterday was Saturday, I’d recently received all kinds of awesome news and been asked out by a girl with a boyfriend (What the hell? How am I supposed to date her…she’ll be my Not Girlfriend? Weird). I’ve had eye sex with at least two girls on the way to my Saturday night event. By “eye sex,” I mean those moments when you make eye contact with a sexy person and just keep looking back because every time you lock eyes it feels like someone reached into your chest and shoved your heart into your throat; slapped you in the face while yelling, “Hey dumbass. You like this one. You should talk to her.”

I ignore that voice and those hands and just keep listening to my music because I’m on the subway, just standing around waiting and I’ve always felt weird about talking to people–particularly people I don’t know–on the subway. Whenever I commute, I usually have my iPod in and my mouth shut.

At any rate, my attractive tally is like one and two–though I seem to be having a problem talking to women unless they’re dating someone, I am obviously a little attractive to a select group of females I’m also attracted to. So I get to the studio where my friends are DJing and meet up with some more of my friends. Just as I expected, I didn’t really know many people there and wasn’t really trying to meet anyone else. But lo and behold, I’m kind of on the right end of another game of ocular fornication with some girl with awesome dance moves.

I try to play it cool, to keep hanging out with my friends, keep trying to tell stories though I can barely hear anyone over the music. I try to keep this girl out of my mind because I’m worried I’ll mumble, that I’ll sink deeper into a no-hitter I can’t escape from. Yet I keep track of where she’s dancing. It’s like a high school dance and I keep worrying she’s going to leave before I get to talk to her. I try to quell that “Oh shit she’s not dancing in the same place, I should have talked to her ten minutes ago–back before she left” feeling.

At one point one of my friends’ girlfriend shows up and tells me I smell nice. It’s not quite enough, but it definitely tips the scales in my favor. I mean, I was not entirely aware of it at the time, but it sort of feels like it all evens out: I might be a criminal ogler but I have my attractive features and this super sexy dancing lady and I are probably making eye contact because of more than just my ridiculous dance moves (described by some as “like a chicken dying”). Yet there’s still that nagging “I need social proof I know how to talk to girls” feeling which prompts me to ask my (female) friend to help me talk to this girl before my friend leaves.

But I’ve lost her and my friend leaves. I’m kicking myself, but I go back to dancing and cavorting. Some of my friends go on smoke break and I decide to go to, just because my ears are killing me. On the way out, I finally run into little-miss-dance-and-stare. And the great news is that stupid “If you don’t talk to her now you never will” feeling isn’t there, it’s just “Oh, this would be a good time to introduce yourself.” It probably went something like this, though I can verify none of the actual dialogue since I was partially deaf and full of social sauce:

“I like everything you’re doing.”

“You like everything I’m doing?”

“Yes, I find everything you’re wearing attractive.”

“Like sometime tomorrow.”

“My name is Chris. What’s yours?”

“Tomorrow.”

“All right, well…”

I had mixed feelings about this exchange, but I definitely decided we were having different conversations and walked outside, confused and perhaps dismayed. I might have felt like an idiot for building this girl up to be more in my head than she really was. I do that all the time, but what with my ogling record, I was also glad to finally have mustered the courage to talk without looking like too much of an idiot.

But then again, my ears were barely functioning. She could have said her name was Tamaera or Tarra or, even crazier, her name could have really been Tomorrow. I have no idea. Looking back though, I don’t think that was my worst mistake.

When I came back in from another cigarette break I had to wipe my glasses off because the cold was fogging them up. I could tell she was staring at me off to my right (despite being mostly blind). I finished wiping, put on my glasses, looked over and pointed at her, looking up and down, and walked off. Perhaps that was my attempt to reinforce what I’d said earlier, my way saying, “I see you looking at me and I still like how you look.” And that was my only high school move of the night. That was when I disappointed myself most–easily because I didn’t see her the rest of the night.

What kind of idiot walks away from a woman who, despite giving an odd first impression, is obviously interested? Why not ask for a dance or a phone number to talk to when the music isn’t so loud? Why not ask about her name again? Why not share some of the awesome news, ask if she’s received any awesome news recently? I’m a little pissed that I shut down so quickly and so completely over something so nonsensical. That is, though we didn’t quite seem to connect on a verbal level, I feel like an idiot for dismissing her because we had obviously connected on a visual level.

Sure, it’s not the end of the world, but I feel like I’ve let myself down, like I let her down; like the onus was on me to start and maintain a conversation and all I could do was wag my finger like a significantly less cool Fonzie. If hindsight is 20/20, then my hope is that writing about how I fucked up last night will help both you and me become farsighted and make the right decisions before they happen instead of afterward.